title: Male-female differences in the association between socioeconomic status and atherosclerotic risk in adolescents.
abstract: Recent work suggests that the association between socioeconomic status and coronary heart disease may be stronger in adult women than in men. This paper evaluates a parallel to these findings in adolescence (aged 12-17) by examining male-female differences in the association between family income and markers of atherosclerosis in the 1999-2004 US National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. We found that moving from the 25th to 75th income percentile is associated with up to a 5.4% greater reduction in the probability of low HDL-C in females compared to males, and a 4.5% greater reduction in the probability of high C-reactive protein. No associations are found between income and LDL-C in either sex. A stronger income-adiposity association in females explains part of the C-reactive protein result, but not the HDL-C result. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of lifecourse development of coronary heart disease and related health policy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, University of Houston - Clear Lake, Houston, TX 77058, USA. muraskoj@uhcl.edu
authors.forename: Jason E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Murasko
mesh_terms: D050154:Adiposity; D000293:Adolescent; D002097:C-Reactive Protein / Q000032:analysis; D002648:Child; D008076:Cholesterol, HDL / Q000097:blood; D008078:Cholesterol, LDL / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006937:Hypercholesterolemia / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D008076:Cholesterol, HDL; D008078:Cholesterol, LDL; D002097:C-Reactive Protein